


Notice

by exactly13percent



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Angst, Domestic, Eventual Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-26 20:02:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17752550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exactly13percent/pseuds/exactly13percent
Summary: He tries not to wonder, because they are fine being whatever it is they are. Except telling himself he won't isn't as easy as doing it, and Neil starts to wonder.





	Notice

_when you sleep, do you dream of me?_

1.

It’s a while after they move in together that Neil wonders if Andrew loves him.

The thought comes unnecessary, unbidden, creeping into the corners of his mind like bleeding stains on white sheets, and it—

—it very nearly _terrifies_ him.

It happens like this:

Neil sits on the kitchen counter, where he shouldn’t be. His hair is wet because it rained on his morning run, and his curls are halfhearted waves plastered to his forehead. They tickle his neck when he turns his head to watch Andrew make coffee.

He likes watching Andrew. Likes the solid line of Andrew’s shoulders; the faint dip in his back. The two impressions faintly visible at the line of his boxers, which Neil sometimes fits his thumbs into, and that always makes Andrew shiver. _Do something, already, junkie._

“Stop it.” Andrew is grumpy. He’s not a morning person. _Not a person,_ he once muttered, when Neil explained to Nicky during a visit why Andrew slammed the bedroom door shut.

Neil’s fingers pick at the edge of the counter. He sometimes wants to touch—wants to hold so badly that he doesn’t ask, because he is afraid. Afraid of hearing no and being crushed by the answer.

It’s not his place to feel sad about it.

Andrew is waiting for an answer. Neil gives him, “Stop what?”

Wrong answer.

Andrew’s mouth is a displeased line; Neil knows its topography well. Has mapped out all the places to warm with his own lips, the places he can bite, the corners to run his tongue over so Andrew opens for him. Now, it is a rigid plateau. It is unimpressed.

It’s still raining outside. Perhaps that is what makes Neil unsteady; the memory of somewhere else, the cold damp of a basement, a childhood of drowned things and held breath. Any other day he might love the rain. Might curl on the bed with Andrew or make hot cocoa and huddle on the couch. Watch a movie. Chase each other’s silent breath.

Trade kisses. Warmth.

Now, Neil hears fat raindrops plink against the metal balcony outside the window, and he cannot stop the sound from echoing in the caverns of his mind.

He had a dream. A good one, where he was somewhere green with Andrew. They didn’t even speak—just lay beside one another, looking. Neil noticed that Andrew’s eyes looked like the earth. He wondered if Andrew would disappear, if he closed his eyes and let go. Something about the thought scared him, but only when he woke up. When reality set in.

Andrew shuffles around and Neil looks up—looks over to find Andrew digging something out of a paper bag. “What’s that?”

A small huff, through the nose. Short and irritated, but with less of an edge. Andrew is waking. He turns and pointedly bites into the cinnamon roll. This early, Andrew’s eyes are still a hazy hazel, sleep clinging to the color like flowers floating on a pond.

Neil stares at the cinnamon roll. He isn’t sure what his brain is doing or why he feels so _between._ Like he is back at Palmetto and also twenty years in the future, and time is nothing because it’s just him and Andrew and the same morning routine they have anywhere they go. They could be in Italy or South Carolina or the bottom of the goddamn sea, and it would be this.

Just this. All he needs. All he should need.

Andrew’s eyes narrow. He has the remainder of the cinnamon roll in his mouth, sticking out from his closed lips—

—and he leans close, his hands on either side of Neil. Defining borders, as if Neil is a country that has been determined with exact lines and coordinates. Andrew keeps his hands in their places, no reason or rhyme but one that only he knows. He tilts his chin up, offering, and his eyes are starting to look sharper. More awake.

Neil licks his lips. Hesitates, because he can’t ask, though Andrew started this. There are things that fall outside of _yes or no_ , and Neil guesses this is one of them. He watches Andrew’s eyes darken—either at the flick of tongue or being kept waiting—and then Neil gives in and leans in.

His mouth waters when he tastes the sweet bread on his tongue, but he waits until he can see Andrew’s lips just out of reach to bite. Neil breaks the roll between them and withdraws, even while every cell in his body strains toward Andrew.

Andrew isn’t angry, but he isn’t quite pleased. He chews on the roll and his jaw works more than it should, as if he is fighting bitter words.

Neil doesn’t know what to say, but Andrew makes the decision for him. Leans in again, exhaling slowly through his nose as if he is being patient. “Yes or no?”

Neil thinks he should say _no_ , if only because he isn’t sure what he is feeling, but his lips spill out, “Yes.”

He knows when Andrew kisses him that he is _exactly_ sure what he’s feeling. Neil knows when Andrew licks sugar from the corner of his mouth, and when Andrew’s tongue tastes like honey on his. Neil knows when his heart pounds erratically in his chest, and when a helpless moan escapes his throat. When Andrew’s hands curl around his wrists in response, guiding him toward Andrew’s chest.

Neil knows. He knows he is in love; has known for some time, though it’s always been an afterthought. A distant, _yes, this exists,_ like gravity or water or the rain. It’s just _there_ , and he never has cause to think too much about it—

—only now, when it is least helpful, because Andrew fits perfectly between his legs and Andrew’s hands have wandered toward Neil’s hips.

Andrew breaks the kiss to move away and Neil manages to stumble through his words; through mumbling, “Your coffee’s gonna boil.”

It’s a lost cause. Lost when Andrew bites Neil’s skin, a faint sting of teeth against the thin stretch at Neil’s collarbone. Neil is dizzy with the contact; with the reminder. _He trusts me. He has to—_

To let Neil this close, he has to. He must.

Andrew pauses. His fingers hover at Neil’s thighs before they press a little, gauging, and then Andrew leans back. “You’re shaking.”

“What?” Neil blinks; can’t quite find reality and make it stick. It vibrates like a phone on a glass table, and he wants to shove it off, so he can concentrate on Andrew. “I—”

Andrew pulls back. He takes himself away, and Neil feels the loss like an echoing cavern. He opens his mouth, a helpless, unhappy noise falling from his lips.

He wants to say _of course, I’m shaking. How can I not shake when you touch me? How do I not? How do I not feel?_

_How do I undo falling in love?_

Neil tries to say, “I’m not—”

“We are not doing this.”

—and that is it, it’s over; Andrew takes his mug and goes elsewhere while Neil is left sitting on the counter, uncertain and burning like a pan left too long on the stove.

He wants to follow Andrew. Explain that the shaking is just his soul; just a reminder that Andrew is so important, Neil can’t help wavering at his touch. That he was shaking not because he feared Andrew, or what they were doing—but he feared what he realized; that even if he loves Andrew—

—even though he _does_ , he doesn’t know—

— _you know, he’s said it a million times_ —

—if Andrew feels the same.

This was not love. It was not supposed to be; was not ever anything but a safe way to explore. Andrew said it; Neil told himself. They were only action and reaction. Passing time. Learning ways.

Except whatever was, it’s not what _is_.

What is true, is that Neil loves Andrew. He loves him and he’s not sure what to do about that.

 

  _when you’re awake, do you think of me?_

2.

Neil smiles to himself. Tucks the cupcake in its box behind his back, juggles his bags while he tries to use his free hand to open the door. It swings beyond his control after three seconds of struggling, and then Neil catches it with his foot before he enters the apartment.

Andrew looks up from the couch. He is wearing his glasses, his blond hair askew and a soft turtleneck bunched up at his knuckles because it’s too big. He’s reading.

It’s hopeless; Neil feels hopeless, stupid, lost.

Found.

He can’t imagine opening the door to any other sight, now.

“The heater is on.” It’s an indirect reminder. Andrew turns back to his book, but he watches Neil from the corner of his eye. Watches the door shut.

Neil shifts his body. Hides as best as he can from Andrew, despite being constantly watched. He is aware how obvious he is, but he persists until he reaches the kitchen. He imagines Andrew, annoyed, debating between stubbornly sitting on the couch and following Neil to investigate.

When the light flickers on, Neil knows Andrew followed.

Andrew crosses his arms as he leans against the wall. He lazily evaluates, his eyes roving Neil in a way that makes Neil shiver from something other than snow. “Well?”

“Well, what?” Neil piles his bags on the counter.

Wrong answer.

The jar of pickles Neil sets on the counter nearly rolls off, because he is too busy paying attention to the way Andrew slips beside him. Neil can feel Andrew’s breath on his cheek—warm, so warm, because it’s freezing outside, and winter hasn’t given up on January yet.

“You’re hiding something.” Andrew looks at the curve of Neil’s jaw. Traces it with his eyes, deliberate and patient. The secret he sees hiding on Neil’s face is not dangerous enough for him to press.

Neil lifts coffee beans out of the grocery bag. Carefully sets them down inches away. “How was your day off?”

“Cold.”

Andrew’s hand raises between them, offering. _Finally._ Neil turns to him; allows the hand to curl around the neck of his pullover hoodie. Andrew tugs him closer, softly insistent, and Neil lets himself fall into the kiss.

There’s something timeless about kissing Andrew. It could be spring, or summer, or the dead of winter like it is now—nothing changes. Nothing; not Andrew’s fingers at his neck or the lazy tilt of his head that says _deeper_ and _more_. The groceries can go to hell. Neil is miles high, chasing the bliss of Andrew on his tongue.

Andrew shifts to the side—leaves Neil’s lips disappointingly cold, instead pressing his mouth to the corner of Neil’s sudden pout. His words are a whisper. “What are you hiding, junkie?”

A grin flickers on Neil’s face. He wants to laugh. Wants to tease Andrew for his suspicious prodding. Instead, he follows Andrew’s lead. Trails his kisses toward the angle of Andrew’s jaw and counts the shuddering breaths Andrew takes. He is anticipating, until the moment Neil kisses his neck.

Andrew shivers. Neil wants his hands on Andrew’s back; wants to feel the curve he remembers. He wants to hide in the crook of Andrew’s neck and shoulder; wants to taste the skin there until his mouth waters and he forgets to eat or drink anything else.

It never ends. Each kiss is _I love, I love, I love,_ and Neil is one step away from spilling everything and saying _you._

Maybe it’s a good thing that Andrew huffs, not angry but perhaps impatient, and taps Neil’s neck. He waits for Neil to pull back and scrutinizes him—

— _dangerous,_ Neil thinks, because Andrew is frighteningly good at picking Neil apart—

—but all Andrew says is, “Well?”

Neil could say _what_. He usually does; drags things out as much as he senses Andrew is willing to let them go. Sometimes Andrew needs reminders. Needs Neil to string him along like the tiny fairy lights in their living room, softly glowing and warm. _I like the light,_ Neil said when he visited Allison, and Andrew told him to buy some. So, Neil did.

For some reason, he can’t stop wondering why Andrew didn’t buy them for him.

A tiny, discordant note rings in Neil’s head. He is disappointed to feel it, but—

—well. At least Andrew gets what he wants.

Neil turns to the counter. Digs into the bags and pulls out the cupcake he hid among the bags, the cardboard box it’s in delicate in his scarred hands. He presents it to Andrew; waits. Waits for Andrew to absorb the gift. The tiny window at the top of the box, and the chocolate cupcake within. The artisan sprinkles and decoration on the icing.

Andrew takes it. Stares into the tiny plastic window, quiet. “This.”

“I saw it and thought of you.”

That’s the point, isn’t it, _I think of you_. That Neil passed a pastry shop on his walk back from practice, and he saw the cupcake and thought of Andrew. Remembered the 3 a.m. batch of cupcakes Andrew made once, when he couldn’t sleep, and Neil couldn’t help him. Neil thought of the cupcakes Andrew lined up like soldiers on the counter, with their white hats of cream cheese icing and a variety of odd toppings pressed into the tops. An absurdly big strawberry in one, a potato chip in another.

Neil looked at the cupcake and thought about Andrew, nodding off in the living room at eight in the morning while Neil came to cover him with a blanket. _Don’t let them get stale,_ Andrew said. _Okay,_ Neil promised. _I won’t._

Neil remembered the cupcakes because when he left for practice in the morning, Andrew was gazing at their marble kitchen counters and tracing the shapes the way he did when he was distant, and the last time he went too far, he made cupcakes.

So, Neil bought a cupcake.

Andrew slides the box onto the counter behind him. His fingers wiggle their way up Neil’s chest, under his jacket. He presses the muscles he finds and maps out invisible paths from scar to scar.

Neil’s eyes slide shut. He leans forward and just _inhales._ Takes in the scent of Andrew’s shampoo, the earthiness of pine and something faint like orange. He breathes in the clean detergent from Andrew’s sweater—Andrew’s that is Neil’s, because he took it—and wonders if Andrew threw the sweater in the dryer that morning, just to wear it warm.

He has been trying not to ask. Neil knows this. Andrew finally does, though; he asks, “Why?”

_Because I love you._ _Because I try to remember every little moment with you, even if I don’t have a perfect memory._

He could say it. Wants to say it.

Neil thinks about what it would be like, to let the words out and wait for Andrew’s answer. To finally let go of those last few inches of rope, and let himself—

— _fall, and you could break a bone._

It’s not his bones he is worried about. Neil has buried enough to know how the story goes.

_Never broken a bone,_ Andrew muttered one night over a glass of whiskey. Neil was almost asleep, and their game of twenty questions went far past twenty. _Not once._

_That’s a lie,_ Neil wanted to say, but his tongue was leaden and sleep already held him. _You’ve broken plenty._

So, Neil answers Andrew with, “Because you like sugar. Sweet.”

He gives a truth, but not _the_ truth, because Andrew hasn’t eaten the cupcake and it isn’t the time.

And maybe he’s scared.

Maybe some part of Neil still wonders about the fairy lights, and he wonders if Andrew would do this—would see something and think _Neil_.

Neil can wait. He does wait, and he smiles when he curls up with Andrew on the couch and watches a show about cooking. He smiles when Andrew allows Neil’s head on his lap, legs crossed, and a pillow balanced for cushion. Neil smiles when chocolate cake crumbs fall onto his hand, and he licks them off until Andrew says _disgusting_ and pulls him up into a kiss.

Andrew falls asleep on the couch and the cupcake box rests abandoned on the table. He should brush his teeth, but Neil lets him lay there. Thinks that it is fine to pretend Andrew is having dreams of Neil buying cupcakes and coming home with arms full.

Because he loves Andrew.

 

_i need to know, how do you feel?_

3.

Neil stumbles. Careens into the door, his steps uncertain and rain splashing underfoot.

He slides onto the ground. Water is already beginning to soak into his jeans; he doesn’t care.

He remembers when he was a child. When his mother first told him, _cotton kills._ When she told him that denim was the worst thing you could wear when it was freezing, when you were left to the elements.

His fingers are cold. Neil watches his hand shake before his face and wills it to stop. Muses over the reddish tips. He thinks that if he were dramatic, he could pretend that he was watching frostbite begin to set in.

Kevin is probably out looking for him. Maybe Matt. They would have told Andrew to stay home—to wait, because _he might show up._

Neil slides his phone from his pocket. He smiles a little. It _would_ be the only thing left on him.

Number one. Speed dial.

Andrew answers immediately; it barely even rings. _“Where are you.”_

Neil exhales. It’s more of a sigh; an endless rush of air from his lungs. He lets out everything _before_ and fills himself with _now._ With the sound of Andrew’s voice and the bone-deep certainty he feels just from hearing it.

“It’s cold,” Neil says. For some reason. He closes his eyes; it doesn’t even matter, anymore. His body is all the same temperature.

_“—eil. Neil,”_ Andrew repeats, and he may have said it several times already. He sounds like his weights. Like the curl of his fist when he threatens to take care of an unruly teammate. _“Talk. Talk to me.”_

“You don’t like it.” Neil laughs, but it is just as wispy and thin as the clouds of his breath in the cold night air. “You tell me to shut up.”

_“No.”_

“You do.” Neil exhales again. Thinks back to when he left that morning, after Andrew snapped.

Well. Not _snapped_. He never did. It was just a pointed word and a _no_ , and then Neil had backed away. Backed away so far, he’d fallen out a window, because that particular opening had been left when Andrew first started pulling away. Andrew had just kept pushing Neil toward it. Pushing him away.

Well—not _pushing_. Andrew had only been silent. Had never reciprocated, exactly, outside of the bedroom and cigarettes. Outside of rooftops and promises. Andrew had never said the words, or any variant of them, and Neil had resolved not to push.

Neil had taken himself to the window, to look out and wonder—and by the time Andrew had said _no_ , it was too late for Neil to take a step away. He was tumbling over the balcony, head over heels, heart crushed against pavement in a bloody, pulpy mess.

Neil tried to say _I love you_ that morning. He had said, _I don’t want to go back for the holidays. Can I stay?_

_Why?_

_Because I don’t want to go back._

Andrew said, _No._

It was knee-jerk. Neil knew it the second it left Andrew’s lips. He knew Andrew probably meant to get an answer first—ask why Neil didn’t want to go back. Dig and dig, until he found out if someone had hurt Neil. If he needed to exact punishment.

Except _no_ came at the worst time, and Andrew knew it just as soon as Neil reeled back over that balcony. Just as soon as Neil said, _okay._

And Neil had walked out the door and didn’t come home on time.

_“—en. Fucking talk, Junkie.”_

Neil blinks. “Did you just call me Josten?”

There are sounds on the other end of the line. Andrew moving, maybe. Shuffling. Perhaps he is looking for another phone to call Matt and Kevin. Maybe he is going to call Wymack, to try and trace the call. If he even could. _“You weren’t answering to your other name.”_

“I’m tired. It’s cold,” Neil says again. He stares down at his feet. His shoes are filthy, and he feels a pang of disappointment at the sight. They’re his running shoes.

He went on a run that morning, after the argument, and he never came back.

He didn’t mean to. Not even in the way he decided never to run again.

It’s just that he ran into trouble. Literally.

_“You always come back,”_ Andrew says. It’s hushed; almost a confession.

Neil is surprised. “I always will.”

He means it.

Silence. This time, it is Andrew that stays quiet. Neil thinks he is feeling steadier. He might be able to stand again, in a few minutes. Not too quickly.

He’s been spoiled. Three years have made him less capable of surviving a day without food. All he has in his stomach is that morning’s coffee and the bottle of water he left the house with.

_“I believe you.”_

Neil stops breathing.

He laughs, a little unsteady and broken, but he _laughs._ He laughs because it’s those three words he never wanted to ask for, because they were ones he didn’t think Andrew would ever give. _Could_ give.

Admitting. Accepting. Acknowledging.

It’s not what Andrew does for Neil. It is what he is doing for himself.

“Why?” Neil asks, and he swallows the hard rock stuck in his throat. His esophagus feels raw; his nose is dry. He is tired. “What did I ever do?”

_“You came back from the dead,”_ Andrew says, and Neil knows exactly what he is talking about. _“And you wanted to stay.”_

Stay. _Stay._

All he fucking wants is to _stay_ , now.

Neil can feel tears on his cheeks. They’re hot; hotter than his body feels. They burn down his face like fire, and he thinks he’s heard someone talk about how fire cleanses. About how some people burn pictures of their exes, or remnants of their past.

He thinks about a car on fire, and a house on fire, and his heart on fire while Andrew’s fingers curled around the back of his neck.

All these new things. All this cleansing, with its tangle of hurt-heal.

“Can I stay with you?” Neil whispers. His voice catches, and he thinks if he could hear himself three years ago, he’d be disturbed. Disgusted. Terrified to know that he could be so easily bruised. That he could bare himself this way, to another person. “Do you know—?”

_Do you know how in love with you I am?_

_Do you see how in love with you I am?_

Neil is one held breath. One raindrop away. He is just on the other side of the door, and all he needs is an answer. Just one.

_“Yes,”_ Andrew says. No hesitation; no uncertainty, no unsteadiness. He says _yes,_ and Neil knows he means it. Knows Andrew would never say it just to make Neil happy or end the conversation.

Andrew says _yes,_ and Neil believes him, because he always has. He has always believed in Andrew. Even when it hurt so much to want him.

_“Tell me where you are,”_ Andrew says. The word he hates is in the air. _“I need to know.”_

“I think…I’m outside,” Neil says.

There is silence, for a beat—

—and then Andrew is moving, and Neil can hear footsteps in the phone and behind him. He can hear the noise of the lock sliding through his phone, and it echoes out of time in the air around him.

Andrew opens the door, and Neil is at his feet.

“There you are,” Neil says, his every word a sigh. “I was looking everywhere for you.”

“You found me,” Andrew says, and his voice is so quiet and so _near._ He is there, Neil realizes, on the ground. He is holding Neil in his arms, as if tucking Neil’s head against his chest will warm him.

It might, Neil thinks. It just might.

“I was gone. But I’m back,” Neil mumbles, and the warmth of the apartment before him seeps through his soaked clothes. “I came back.”

“You always do.”

“Yeah. I always will.”

Andrew’s fingers curl into Neil’s jacket. They are pale as always, and his knuckles are red. A little bruised. He must have hit something—the wall, maybe. Neil wants to frown, but instead, he reaches out. Waits for Andrew to allow his touch, before Neil brings the beaten skin to his lips.

He kisses the hurt, because he knows it is partly on his behalf. Because he knows how much Andrew must have restrained himself.

Because they are human, and they fuck up.

“Drew?”

Andrew’s fingers tangle with Neil’s. “Yes.”

“I do,” Neil whispers. It might hurt, and it might go badly again, but he has to say it. Has to try. “I love you.”

“I believe you,” Andrew says, and then he pulls Neil closer to his chest. Leans in, just enough that his warm breath ghosts across Neil’s ear.

Andrew confesses, on a rainy day in February.

“I love you.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was definitely a journey to write! It's been some time since I've written dedicated angst, and it was both nice and sad to write. I hope you enjoy!


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